2x Agency Founder | Helping Creative Agencies Scale Past 7-figures | 27+ years in Media | Ex-Paramount and Discovery Inc | Author of The CCO’s Journal - Creative Thinking from an Ex-CCO
"Good enough" gets a bad reputation in creative work, and I understand why. But the people who dismiss it entirely are usually applying the same standard to every stage of the process, which is its own kind of mistake. I've sat in meetings where a team spent three days perfecting a deck that nobody outside that room would ever scrutinize, while the actual idea at the centre of it was still soft. Nobody said anything. The slides looked great. But the thinking hadn't been done. I've also watched people use the word "craft" to describe what was really just fear. Fear of being seen. Fear of the decision. Fear of what happens when the work goes out and people have opinions about it. Polishing became the thing they did instead of the thing they needed to do. That's the version of perfectionism that costs creative businesses real money, and it shows up in predictable places. → The presentation that gets another round of refinement when the strategic recommendation inside it is still unclear. → The copy that goes through six edits when the brief it's responding to was never properly interrogated. → The internal document that looks beautiful and says nothing that couldn't have been said in a conversation. But I want to be honest about the other side of this, because I've seen it go wrong in both directions... There are also moments in creative work where the last ten percent changes everything. One line in a strategy document that reframes the entire argument. One edit in a film that shifts what an audience feels. One image choice that either earns trust or quietly loses it. Those moments are real, and the people who wave them away with "good enough" do genuine damage to the work and to the people who have to stand behind it. So the thing I've had to learn, and keep relearning, is that the standard itself isn't the problem. The problem is knowing when to apply it and when to let go. 1. In early thinking, rough drafts, internal working sessions, and exploratory concepts - speed matters far more. So moving fast, staying loose, letting ideas form without pressure makes sense here. 2. But when the work is going in front of a client, when it's tied to a relationship or a reputation or a decision that's hard to undo, that's where slipping into good enough becomes a slow leak. Clients don't actually pay for the extra round of polish. They pay for the judgment that knows whether the extra round is necessary. Great creative leaders understand that difference instinctively. The ones still developing it tend to either over-refine everything out of anxiety or under-deliver everything out of speed, and both of those habits are expensive over time. My own rule, which I've tested enough times to trust: stop when the extra effort stops changing the decision, the feeling, or the outcome. And if you can't answer what changes by doing more, you're done. Move on.